


promise

by viraseii



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Abuse, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Child Abuse, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Unresolved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-05
Updated: 2017-10-05
Packaged: 2019-01-09 08:04:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12272292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viraseii/pseuds/viraseii
Summary: “You’ll be okay, Keith. I promise.”“Promise?”“Definitelypromise."





	promise

**Author's Note:**

> anyway proofreading is fake news

Keith hisses as he clamps his teeth down hard, accidentally catching the skin of his cheek between them. Pain shoots up his arm as his dad seizes his bicep over a healing bruise, pulling him back and slamming his back into the wall. Tears spring to his eyes.

“This is _my house,_ ” his dad seethes. “You’re under _my_ roof, and that means you answer when I ask you a question. Where were you yesterday night?”

Keith glares through his bangs, fingers clenching, back aching, toes screaming where they’re trapped under his dad’s foot. “It’s not your _business,_ ” he repeats.

“ _You are my business._ Your life is my life. Everything you’re doing, I have to know about - I’m your _parent,_ Keith.”

He wants to cry. He tries to pull his arm away, but his dad pushes it down, grabbing Keith’s other wrist in his free hand and forcing him back to the wall.

“I’m just trying to be a good parent, but it’s like you need reminder after reminder and you _still don’t get it-_ ”

Keith spits in his dad’s face. His dad backs up, caught off guard, and Keith bolts as soon as his foot is free - grabs his jacket from the floor and his shoes on the way out, not even putting any of it on before he’s running down the street in his socks.

“Keith! Come back right now, you’re not allowed to go anywhere until we sort this out..” The voice fades out as Keith sprints, his ears ringing, eyes blurring.

He turns the corner of his street and stops to put on his shoes before he runs the skin off the soles of his feet. The last time he did this, his dad came out in his car and nearly fucking ran Keith over - Keith jogs over to a trail at the end of the cul de sac so he doesn’t have to relive that experience. He runs blindly into the darkening forest, evergreens stretching tall into the overcast twilight as it steadily deepens.

He knows these trails almost like the back of his hand. If his dad wasn’t like a fucking jailkeeper, he’d actually have time to explore - but he’s been here often enough to know how the loops work, how to get back when he needs to.

But he doesn’t want to.

He wishes he could just run into the forest forever, run and run and run eternally until he never had to go back and even if he wanted to there’d be no path left. Lose himself in the moss and the ferns and the doves that fly by in pairs.

He takes the longer trail, the one that goes up the hill, the one where if he looks in the right direction he can see the park with all of its kindergarteners enjoying day to day life. Did Keith get that as a kindergartener? Keith didn’t have any fucking friends in kindergarten.

He shoves his earbuds into his ears, scrolling aimlessly down his playlist and hitting a random song. Turns up the volume until the booming bass can almost drown out his thoughts, because if he thinks too much he’ll cry and that’s so _pathetic-_

He doesn’t notice that his name is being called until someone’s waving their hand in front of his face. He jumps back, cringing, feeling stupid when he opens one eye and realizes it’s just Lance. Lance shoots him a half smile, eyes concerned, reaches out and pulls one earbud out of Keith’s ear. “You good?”

Keith’s eyes roam to the two faces behind Lance. Pidge and Hunk, panting as they catch up from wherever Lance has apparently just sprinted from. “Jeez, Lance,” Hunk groans. “Why’d you take off like tha- ohhh, hey Keith! What’s up?”

“I… nothing,” Keith lies, except Lance immediately recognizes the thickness in Keith’s voice because that’s what happens when you spend six years being best friends. His eyebrows draw inside, creating those little lines in Lance’s face that bring Keith down even more because Lance looks so good when he smiles. “ _Nothing,_ ” he stresses. He _hates_ complaining about his overprotective parents. He always feels like he’s just begging attention, and he can’t - not right now, he can’t -

“Hey, I’ll catch up with you guys later,” Lance says, turning to Hunk and Pidge. “Okay?”

“Lance, I’d really rather you just _left me alone_ -”

“He never means it when he says that,” Lance clarifies. “See you guys later.” He strides ahead, beckoning for Keith to follow. Keith huffs out a dramatic sigh that only half turns into a dry sob, turning to look at Pidge with tired eyes.

She shrugs. “Go, man. Let’s hang later?”

“Sure,” he mutters, even though the chances of that are close to fucking zero. She smiles and waves bye, turning and walking with Hunk back the way they’d come. Keith continues on his original path, walking slowly until Lance gives up waiting for Keith to catch up and jogs back to him.

“Want to head down to the park?” he offers.

“No.”

“Want to tell me what’s up?”

“No.”

“Is it your dad?”

“No, it’s my mom.”

Lance’s eyebrows fly up. “Really? After nine years-”

“It was a motherfucking _joke._ ”

Lance watches him, cautious, seemingly already moved on from the topic of Keith’s mom. “Keith, you gotta talk to me.”

“It’s nothing!”

“Look, you know how this plays out.”

Keith stops walking because he _does_ know how this plays out. He tips his head back and stares up at the deepening night, pieces of it visible through the fragmented web of dark leaves. His eyes blur again. He reaches for the earbud that dangles by his side, bringing it up only halfway up to his ear when Lance’s fingers gently block his path - he flinches.

“Is that a new one..?” Lance is leaning over to Keith’s left, eyes tracing the darkening purple on Keith’s arm. Keith closes his eyes. “ _Keith,_ you can’t - damn it, when will you let me tell the police!”

“I don’t _need_ to tell any police-”

Lance cuts off his whisper. “Keith, he’s _abusing you._ Do you understand what that word means? Do you even get it - you’ve been suffering through this so long, and every time you try to stand up for yourself it just gets worse and worse. That’s-”

“ _Stop!_ ” Keith wails, and all his thoughts finally crash over, cresting and falling and scattering like a mass of angry bubbles all over his brain. He sobs, raw and choked, bringing up his arms to hug his ribs.

“Keith - no, no no, Keith…” Lance is murmuring, gently, slowly pulling Keith into his arms. Keith sinks into the warmth, because this touch is so much more inviting than his dad’s. It’s the touch he wants, the one that’s soft, the one that actually makes him feel good - like he matters - like he’s his own person - like he’s _loved_ and not just an _adopted child_ to be _looked after_ because he’s _such a chore_. He sobs again, leaning heavily into Lance’s shoulder. “You don’t deserve to feel like this, Keith. You don’t deserve to be treated like this.”

Keith just forces his throat to stop tearing out sobs so loudly. It feels like it chokes him, but it’s better than asking for attention the way he is… He’s almost eighteen anyway, there’s no point in lamenting his home life _now…_

“You deserve better, Keith. Okay? You deserve people who love you, who care about you…”

“I don’t.”

“Yes, you definitely do. You deserve people who don’t want to control you. You deserve people who respect you. Okay?”

“I-”

“You do.” Lance’s lips move against Keith’s forehead. Keith just curls his fingers around Lance’s shoulders, probably making marks - he squeezes his eyes shut, lips curling back with how hard he’s clenching his teeth.

He doesn’t want this to end like he knows it will. He doesn’t want to leave Lance’s arms, the protective way he holds Keith to his chest. But just hours from now, he’ll have to go back to his house if he wants a bed to sleep in tonight - “I don’t want to go back,” Keith whispers into the gathering darkness, like if he says it too loud it might break the warmth around him. “I don’t want to - I don’t want to go back, ever-”

“Then come home with me.”

“I _can’t,_ you know I can’t…”

“It won’t be a problem. You’re always welcome with us, you know, you don’t ever have to go back to him with the shitty way he treats you-” Lance falls silent. “Please. Don’t make yourself go through this. I care about you, you know?”

“I care about you too..”

“This isn’t about that. This is about you, Keith, and your health - and this isn’t okay.”

“I _know._ ”

“Okay, let’s - let’s start small. Okay? Stay the night at my house. You know my mom and your dad are on good terms, anyway, so nothing too bad can happen. But this is three times in the last two days, there’s no way I can let you head back there tonight.”

Keith pulls in a shaky breath. Every minute he postpones it, he’s just making it worse. But. But one night - one night’s break, maybe, enough time for him to just. Just gather himself, maybe. Because right now he’s a fucking _mess._ “Okay.”

“Okay. Okay, that’s good. You can stay the night at my house, and you don’t have to think about anything else, okay? You can just relax. We have cake from Rivera’s birthday, if you want any of that, and we have plums, the red ones that you like.”

Keith leans his head down and drops it onto Lance’s shoulder heavily. “Lance… stop…”

“Okay. Okay, Keith. It’s okay.” He brings one hand up to weave it into Keith’s hair, massaging gently. “You’re fine. I’m not going to hurt you. It’s getting dark though, so we should go…”

Keith shakes his head.

“No?”

Another shake.

“Okay. Here - get your jacket on, you’re allergic to mosquitoes…” he pulls away from Keith, gently pulling the layers of fabric bunched up in Keith’s fist. He drapes it around Keith’s shoulders, guiding his arms into the sleeves. “Better?”

Keith nods. Lance stands back from him, just watching him, so Keith leans in closer - because he doesn’t want to leave Lance’s warmth. Lance reaches up and catches his face in his hands, thumbs brushing away the tears. Keith shivers. There’s indecision on Lance’s face - then he smiles, except Keith know what he’s thinking about.

Knows because they’ve come close to it before. Knows that Lance isn’t going to do it now because it’s a sensitive situation, knows Lance understands that Keith has a hard time with emotions anyway and dealing with more than one big thing at a time is guaranteed to shut him down into dissociation for months on end. Knows that however unsure Lance is, it’s something Keith wants in this moment because he just wants a _break._

So he brings his hands up to Lance’s cheeks and pulls him down into this long-overdue kiss, one that Lance has tried and always been interrupted during so many times before, one Keith has been avoiding for several months now because he was always so worried about so many other things.

Lance doesn’t respond immediately. He kisses back, but then he breaks off - “Wait.” He breathes in once, out. “Are you sure you’re okay with this? You’re… now?”

Lance is… he trusts Lance. Lance is the only person in the world who calms him down. So.. “Yeah, Lance…”

Lance wraps his arms around Keith again, feather-light, letting his lips fit over Keith’s again. Keith closes his eyes and loses himself in the warmth. He doesn’t have to make himself go through all the shitty things in his life. He can do things one step at a time. He can trust Lance. Lance keens a little, pushing forward as he kisses Keith, coaxing his mouth open, enjoying Keith’s mouth. He breaks off again. “You’re absolutely sure… because I don’t want to… to get my hopes up, and if you’re just looking for comfort, I’m cool with that…”

Keith huffs out a sigh. “I’m sure.” Leans up and brings their lips back together. Part of it is that it _does_ calm him down - the kissing, focusing on just the physical feeling of Lance’s tongue in his mouth.

“Let’s go,” he says softly into Lance’s collarbone a good twenty minutes later.

“Okay.” Lance kisses him again. “Let’s go.” His arm stays around Keith as they start walking again, the sky fully dark now. “You’ll be okay, Keith. I promise.”

“Promise?”

“ _Definitely_ promise. It’s my duty now, as your boyfriend, to officially protect you from anything that would ever stop you from smiling. Unless it’s my mouth.”

“Thanks.”

“I mean it. I mean it, Keith, small steps, but I promise you’ll be okay.”

“... Thanks, Lance.”

**Author's Note:**

> Star said "I want more aus where Keith has a terrible home environment and finds solace in lance's big loud happy household" and this ism't _quite_ it but it's close enough


End file.
